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Officials said the government is contemplating relaxing rules for return of goods as well as enhancing the value limit for ecommerce exports through couriers from the current ₹10 lakh per consignment, to align with the central bank’s ₹25 lakh cap for cross-border payment aggregators.
“Some relaxations and policy changes are being discussed… The focus could be on MSME-driven cross-border ecommerce,” said an official.
Easing regulations is key, as India is developing dedicated ecommerce export hubs for facilitating such trade. The aim is to support SMEs, artisans and small businesses.
Clarity in Reverse Logistics
This is by reducing the cost and time associated with logistics, streamlining regulatory processes and simplifying re-imports for ecommerce returns or rejects. These dedicated ecommerce export hubs will have warehousing facility for easy storage, customs clearance, returns processing, labelling, testing and repackaging.
“The government is keenly looking at the issues of courier exports and reverse logistics,” the official said. Reverse logistics include handling rejected or returned consignments, including re-import and disposal.
There has been demand from the industry for clear guidelines to recognise returned ecommerce exports as re-imports of returned goods. Lack of a standard operating procedure now makes the process complicated for ecommerce exporters, often MSMEs, to claim the returned items without paying duty. Exporters said at present customs must certify that the same product is being re-imported; otherwise they need to pay duty.”There should be no undue burden on MSMEs when it comes to reverse logistics,” the official said.
Fashion and apparel, gems and jewellery, home and living, organic wellness and beauty, and handcrafted lifestyle products are India’s key ecommerce export products.
India has set itself a merchandise exports target of $1 trillion by 2030, aiming for a compounded annual growth rate of 12.2%, and cross-border ecommerce has been identified as a contributor to meet this aim. India’s ecommerce exports through the postal and courier routes are pegged at $1.5 billion a year. Global cross-border ecommerce is estimated to grow to up to $2 trillion by 2030.
The Foreign Trade Policy 2023 has a stated objective to enable cross-border ecommerce for artisans, weavers, craftsmen and MSMEs. Under the policy, the government increased the courier export limit to ₹10 lakh per consignment, extended the Duty Drawback and Remission of Duties and Taxes on Exported Products benefits to courier-mode exports, established over 1,000 post office export centres and eased procedures related to the Export Data Processing and Monitoring System to lower compliances and boost small-scale ecommerce exports.